Grand Rapids fight legend Wes Ramey to get his due in International Boxing Hall of Fame

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — Grand Rapids boxing great Wes Ramey will finally be recognized at the highest level for everything he accomplished in his fight career: the International Boxing Hall of Fame has come calling.

It was announced Monday, Dec. 10, that Ramey, who died in 1997 at age 87 of heart failure, will be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in June, the highest post-career honor a boxer can be bestowed and many would say, a long time coming.

Ramey started his professional boxing career in 1929 by defeating Young McFarland in a six-round bout and ended his professional career on June 20, 1941, in Grand Rapids with a win against Marice Arnault. In those 12 years, Ramey's accomplishments are second to none in Grand Rapids history.

He was ranked as one of the top 10 lightweight fighters for 10 consecutive years, beating six world champions along the way. Unfortunately Ramey was never able to claim one of those belts for himself due to opponents coming in over-weight for their respective titles.

Wes Ramey vs. Leonard Del GenioWes Ramey takes on Leonard Del Genio on 6-13-39 in Grand Rapids. You'll be able to identify Ramey as the very active fighter, dancing in and out while Del Genio paces forward to deliver his punches. Ramey wins the fight in a 10-round decision.

"We had a lot of interaction over the years and much of it centered around being a good person, and that's something I really enjoyed about him," Butler said. "Even to this day, whatever I made in boxing I have to give him credit for that. There were trainers around that couldn't care less about you, but he was in it for the people."

That sentiment is echoed by Ramey's son, Wes Ramey Jr., who followed his father into both boxing and training and owns Top Level Gym in Indianapolis, Ind.

"He got the kids to like boxing by treating them all fair," Ramey Jr. said. "He harped on education and staying in school. It didn't always work but that's what he wanted. If you wanted to box with us, you had to stay in school."

Ramey Jr. said his father was able to keep some kids off the streets by putting them in the ring, letting them work out their energy on positive activities while working on who they were as human beings.

"He treated them all with respect, he did that well," Ramey Jr. said.

Bruce Kielty, a West Michigan boxing matchmaker and historian said Ramey's fight career takes precedence over his time training, but both were noteworthy.

"He certainly was one of the few great boxers who was able to teach," Kielty said. "Wes Ramey was different. He did not try to convert people to his style, which is a big weakness of being a great boxer turned trainer, you try to make everyone like yourself. Everyone will tell you that Wes was a master technician and boxer yet one of his most well-known boxers, Johnny Butler, was known as a very aggressive puncher."

Butler was Ramey's greatest accomplishment as a trainer. And, as Golden Glove National Champ in 1953, Butler also was the trainer's star pupil.

"He was my dad's favorite, yes, he was," Ramey Jr. said. "He was my dad's favorite fighter of all the ones he's trained. He was so proud of him with his accomplishments in the ring, in school and in life."

Butler recalls the friend he had in Ramey as difficult choices arose his senior year in high school.

John Butler, Grand Rapids' first National Golden Gloves Champion in 1953, holds a photo of his trainer Wes Ramey and the boxing gloves Ramey used to dominate lightweight champion Tony Canzoneri, also pictured. (Cory Olsen | MLive.com)Cory Olsen | MLive.com

"After winning the national championship, I started to get all these letters from colleges that had boxing programs, wanting me to come there, and on the other side everyone wanted me to turn pro," Butler said. "That was going to be my plan with Wes, but my mom wanted me to go to school."

"So I talked to Wes about it, and that's one of the things I liked so much about him. He was more concerned about what happens after boxing, the long-term. Boxing was not a sure thing and back in those days, it wasn't paying a lot of money. He said to me, 'If your mom wants you to go to school, you go to school.' That meant a lot to me because here I was, the first national champion from Grand Rapids and I could have been promoted and done pretty well, but he was more concerned about me as an individual and my future than making some bucks off of me and my career."

Kielty said even though Ramey was never considered a knockout artist, it was his ring style that made him such a successful fighter.

"He knew how to get in and out, he had great legs and conditioning," Kielty said. "Ramey could get out of range and had great lateral movement."

"He was such a spectacular boxer and was in the top 10 in the world. In the era he boxed in, there were quality guys in every city in the U.S. If you look at his record it's just phenomenal. He was fighting quality people almost immediately. It was a different era, much more difficult to succeed and he succeeded."

Ramey Jr. said the number of fights his father had is sometimes debated, but he's cleared the numbers up after going through his father's diary for the fight totals.

"My dad had 259 fights," Ramey Jr. said. "He fought 49 times in the amateurs and had 210 professional fights, losing 22 of those. Of those losses, he reversed 11 of them on rematch."

Ramey's most memorable matchup came in front of his hometown of Grand Rapids on April 29, 1933. Paired up with fellow top lightweight Tony Canzoneri, Ramey dominated him in a 10-round victory using his speed and precision.

"After that fight was over my father had a big black and white photo of he and Canzoneri together before the fight," Ramey Jr. said. "But my father realized that he didn't have (Canzoneri's) autograph on it, so my father went to the elevator in the hotel where he was staying and went up."

"As the doors opened, Canzoneri was standing there, waiting to get on the elevator, and my father said, 'Well, hi there, Tony, haven't I seen you somewhere else tonight?' And Tony took his dark sunglasses off and he was all bruised and he said, 'Yes you have, Wes, and this is the first time I've seen you all night!'"

For Butler, Ramey will always be more than a boxer and trainer, but without those, the two may have never met.

"Wes was famous for saying, 'Keep your hands up, your chin down and your butt off the floor,'" Butler said, laughing. "It was good advice, It worked for me."

Butler knew one thing about Ramey after spending thousands of hours in the gym with him: The man knew what he was talking about.

"We always had a great relationship, there were never any disagreements over anything," Butler said. "I always thought of it this way: He knew and I was learning, so I was listening."